


he's so bossy ; he makes me dance

by replacements



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Capes, Autistic Damian Wayne, Awkward Romance, F/M, Fluff and Humor, For Backstory I Will Pepper in the Fact that Jim and Harvey are Married, Harnessing Lust For Political Purposes, Interview/First Date, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, i rly hope that tag takes off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 12:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19701145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/replacements/pseuds/replacements
Summary: Fresh out of college Stephanie Brown needs a job, and her overeager roommate, Kara, has connections to Wayne Enterprises that Stephanie is all too willing to exploit. Unfortunately this request gets passed through one too many hands, and neither Stephanie nor Bruce Wayne's youngest son have any idea what they've gotten themselves into. A big ol whoops.





	he's so bossy ; he makes me dance

This is what Stephanie got for going to college.

It had been three months since her last interview with nothing to show for it but radio silence and she’d had to accept that all corporations were apparently run by teenage boys on tinder, since they thought the appropriate response to someone they had no interest in was to never speak to them again. Her roommate had looked her dead in the eyes and said, “My cousin’s boyfriend’s friend’s dad is super tight with Bruce Wayne. I bet I could get you an interview at Wayne Enterprises.” 

“Why not just stop at cousin’s boyfriend?” was Stephanie’s only criticism toward this idea. He was one of Bruce Wayne’s many children, after all. 

“Well that’d just be too obvious!” Kara had explained. “Plus, Bruce respects Jim’s opinion. He’ll know how to talk you up.” 

“Sure,” Stephanie had shrugged, because she was poor and desperate and wanted to wake up in a world where she could UberEATS herself a large McDonald’s Sprite whenever she wanted. And now, because of her ungodly gluttony, she was being punished by the purgatory of being stuck in an itchy dress she couldn’t breathe in while she sat across from not Bruce Wayne, but the miniature version of him, as she was apparently so unimportant he’d sent his youngest son to conduct the interview in his place. She couldn’t believe she’d shaved her legs for this. She knew how to impress rich old dudes, they were so depressed and pathetic and all she had to do was wear a low cut lop and lip gloss to more or less get what she wanted. Damian Wayne, however, was all of nineteen years old and didn’t even directly work at Wayne Enterprises, which didn’t seem fair, but then again, nothing about obscenely rich people did. They just kind of did whatever they wanted and everyone around them shrugged, like, well okay. 

For instance, Trust Fund Baby Wayne had thought it was acceptable to negatively comment on what Stephanie was wearing before promptly ordering for the both of them in a language she did not speak. He’d never had to work for anything in his privileged little life and was used to the world bending on its axis to give him what he wanted.

“And here I thought I was following the dress code to a T,” she smiled insincerely at the horrid man-child across from her, reminding herself that this, like everything in the world, was a test. Bruce Wayne knew exactly what he was doing sending his son out to do his busywork, and all Stephanie had to do was play nice for a few hours, then she’d never have to deal with him again. 

Damian Wayne’s eyes flicked upward to meet hers, a cutting flash of bright green contrasting against his dark brown skin. 

“You are dressed appropriately enough,” he commented on this fact neutrally. “I just don’t like the color.” 

She beamed cheerily at him. “Good thing you’re not the one wearing it, then.” 

She tried and failed to suppress the venom in her tone, men never seemed to notice it anyway, except for Damian Wayne, apparently. He held her unyielding gaze for an awkward, lingering moment, then turned to to rummage through the Gucci messenger bag slung around his chair. Stephanie wanted to grab it and slap him across the face with it before running off with it into the night. She could sell it on Poshmark and it would be more lucrative than this dinner. She was _losing_ money just to sit through this pointless fucking interview. Of course a silver spoon brat like Damian Wayne would think it was totally normal and fine to insist on meeting at an obnoxiously expensive restaurant and order a super expensive meal for her because he just thought everyone could pay for things. 

“I brought some topics for discussion,” Damian told her, stacking a handful of notecards on the table before clearing his throat and saying, “My father tells me you’ve recently completed your bachelor’s degree—” 

“You know,” Stephanie cut him off, too bored and annoyed to care she was tanking this interview before it could even start. She fished out her resume from her own sticking out like sore thumb Jansport book bag and handed it over. “I did come prepared.” 

“Oh,” Damian blinked, surprise and maybe a little admiration coloring his cheeks. “Well. Alright. Shall I just sit here and read through this, then?” 

Stephanie couldn’t answer because their server returned with a bottle of red wine for the table. Stephanie wasn’t sure whether this was another test or not. Drinking alcohol during an interview just seemed super unprofessional, but Damian was already reaching across to pour a full glass for Stephanie before serving himself. 

Stephanie cocked a dubious eyebrow. “You’re not old enough to drink.” 

Damian’s eyes narrowed in blank confusion. “Of course I am,” he said. 

Stephanie closed her eyes for a moment, grounding herself so she wouldn’t say anything that would get her arrested. Was there _anything_ money couldn’t buy? 

“Have I done something to offend you, Miss Brown?” 

Stephanie opened her eyes to once again find Damian Wayne’s shockingly green eyes starting back at her. 

She smiled sedately at him. “Of course not, Mister Wayne.” 

There was that odd look on his face again, like she was speaking gibberish or something. 

“Just—” He cleared his throat around a sip of his wine. “Damian is fine.” 

“Is he though?” Stephanie couldn’t stop her mouth from blurting out before her brain could tell her it was a bad idea. 

“Ah,” Damian said after another awkward moment of silence. “You’re making fun of me.” 

“Sorry,” she gifted him with a crooked smirk devoid of any pretense. She was actually starting to feel kind of like a bitch. Damian looked just as eager to get this dinner over and done with as she did. Of all the Wayne kids, he was the one she knew the least about. He attended the galas and posed for the pictures with his father and stepmother and all his siblings, but he didn’t do magazine covers like Dick or give lengthy interviews like Tim, he was notoriously private. That, of course, only made the paps and the people even more rabid. She remembered the time a delusional fangirl had accosted him on the street and his extremely alarmed reaction to it had become a popular meme for weeks. It must have kind of sucked to grow up in the public eye like that, to have the world around you feel as if they’re entitled to every detail about your personal life, to be treated like an object rather than a person. 

“Genetics.” she deadpanned.

Damian’s expression softened into something that was almost amusement. He opened his mouth as if to reply and then closed it again, diverting his attention back to the resume she’d given him, skimming over it quickly before slipping into his Gucci messenger bag. 

“Thank you for this. I’m sure it will prove useful as I reflect on the potential of another meeting. But for tonight, I think it would be more efficient to simply speak to each other face to face.” 

Damn. There went all her sympathy. As it turned out, Damian Wayne was not a misunderstood sad and sensitive rich boy, he just kind of sucked. Like when he very clearly judged her with those much too discerning cat-like eyes of his because she was what she liked to call an enthusiastic eater. The meal he’d chosen for her was surprisingly delicious and she couldn’t keep her mouth shut about it. 

“This sauce tastes like heaven,” she hummed around the fingers she was sucking it from. Damian obviously disapproved of this barbaric method of sauce consumption, but held his now familiar stiff composure when he said,

“I’m glad you like it.” 

Things weren’t so bad when they got to talking about Stephanie’s academic achievements. Damian was the first person not to react in abject horror when she told him she’d majored in history. He, in fact, had brightened at this and then went on to regale her with a long winded tangent about the classes he’d “sat in” at GU and how much he enjoyed them. It was at this point Stephanie began to notice the conversation was slipping farther and farther away from any job adjacent dialogue and she realized she was being passive aggressively blown off. This chafed her and suddenly she was no longer interested in trolling her way through this interview. It was time to demand to be taken seriously. 

“I’m going to be a museum curator,” she explained with all the haughty self righteousness she could muster. 

“Hm,” Damian replied, tone still minimally polite and neither here nor there. “I must admit, I don’t know much about what that would entail. By which I mean, why you’re going to be doing that and not already there.” 

“Well,” Stephanie sighed, more to herself than anyone else. “If I was better at math or I hated myself, I would have doubled in history and business. Or at least minored in business. But,” she was grateful for this segue to get back to the job she was currently vying for. “That’s why I’m looking for an entry level position now, I’m not trying to climb the ladder up any companies or cut any throats, but — I grew up watching my dad run his business so I do know what I’m doing. Or rather, I know what not to do.” 

Damian laughed at that, and for a moment Stephanie was thrown off balance. She couldn’t remember ever seeing the youngest Wayne boy even crack a full smile, and she’s just made him choke on his wine. She bit back a smirk of her own, clearing her throat to continue her I Am Job spiel. 

“I’m willing to work hard and go to bat for a company I believe in and it would be an incredible opportunity for me to gain the kind of experience I need to pursue future ventures.” She paused, allowing her pint sized interviewer to digest this, and took a long sip of her own barely touched wine. 

He wasn’t really pint-sized at all, which was still perpetually throwing dissonance into her usually sound cognition. At 23, anyone too young to get into a bar was indistinguishable from a toddler. 

So it was all that much more of a mindfuck for TeenBeat Wayne to be roughly the size of a barge. He was as big as Kara’s cousin, Conner, surely, and Conner was a grown ass professional football player. This boy did not have any business looking completely at ease sipping on dry red wine and scratching idly at his neatly groomed facial scruff, and yet, this reality was inescapable. Stephanie swiftly decided this called for her down the rest of her wine in one steadying gulp. 

“I see,” Damian replied evenly, seeming to mull this over in his head like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. He was—distracted—Stephanie realized, and took even longer to deduce that it was that he kept flicking his eyes to one particularly on display area of her body before quickly averting his gaze somewhere else, like a mindless moth who kept bashing their body into a lightbulb over and over again. She was half disgusted, half flushed, and blamed the latter on the slow creeping buzz of alcohol she was experiencing due to guzzling the table wine like it was the last drink she was going to have for the foreseeable future. 

“And that,” Stephanie sighed around her last bite of chocolate torte, “is how I got banned from all Walgreens, nationwide.” 

“A shame,” Damian concurred wryly, having spent the last ten minutes silently listening to Stephanie’s impromptu story time. Somewhere deep down in the dregs of her lizard brain she knew this was not at all appropriate job interview conversation, but Damian had started it by bringing up the time he’d had to break into his father’s office without him knowing and gotten away with it because he knew how to disarm the alarm system. Stephanie had rudely called him an amateur and followed up by boasting about how a pro slips in and out without having tripped it in the first place. 

“Well,” Damian lifted up a black silk sleeve to peer down at his watch that cost more than Stephanie’s monthly rent. “It’s getting late. Shall we call it?” 

“Sure.” Stephanie shrugged, wine-buzzed and acquiescent. “Thank you,” she spit out, suddenly remember she was on a fucking job interview and needed to act like a real human being. “For meeting with me. I really appreciate you taking the time to do so and I hope you’ll find that I’d be a good fit for your needs.” 

Damian’s cheeks bruised a ruddy color, and he nodded once, slipping the long forgotten note cards back into his messenger bag. 

“Of course,” he replied, clipped and not meeting her eyes. “Thank _you_ for taking the time to meet with me, Miss Brown. Your interest is certainly flattering and I appreciate your directness. You’ve given me a lot to think about.” 

“Stephanie,” she said as he stood and she blindly followed suit before blinking down at the table before her. “Um. Where do I go to pay?” 

Now it was Damian’s turn to look confused. 

“It’s been taken care of.” 

“Oh,” Stephanie felt her own cheeks heat up at the revelation. Rich people weren’t so bad when they paid for your stuff. “Thank you two-point-oh, then.” 

“Mm,” Damian replied simply. “Do you require a ride back to your home? My driver would be happy to oblige.” 

“Oh,” Stephanie scoffed. “No, that’s okay. I can just catch the bus.” 

Damian got that squinty I-don’t-understand-poor-people look on his face again. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Quite,” she quipped back at him, feeling a little unsteady on her legs. The fresh air walk to the bus stop would only do her good. 

“I’ll walk you out, then.” And Damian Wayne actually extended his arm, like Beauty and the Beast style, and Stephanie was too disoriented not to simply take it and allow herself to be led out of the restaurant. Damian’s arm was surprisingly cool to the touch, and she couldn’t help but surreptitiously lean in closer than she needed to so she could determine what he smelled like. She’d expected something spicy, masculine, like tobacco and cinnamon. Damian didn’t smell like either of those things, though. Instead she was hit with a refreshingly floral sort of scent, clean and mossy. She wondered dazedly if he shopped at Lush before the cold air of the evening smacked into her like the most pleasant punch to the face she’d ever been on the receiving end of. 

“So,” Stephanie mused awkwardly, unsure of what to do with Damian’s lingering presence. “My stop’s that way, so.” 

“It’s dark,” Damian tutted, as if annoyed at the sun for setting. “You shouldn’t be walking by yourself or waiting at a bus stop alone.” 

“I do it all the time,” Stephanie muttered, a little chafed at the medieval assertion she was a helpless little thing who’d faint at the first sign of danger. 

Damian was unimpressed by her lack of being murdered thus far. 

“That doesn’t soothe me in the slightest.” 

“Well,” Stephanie scoffed. “Your antiquated beliefs have got nothing to do with me. Would you offer to escort a male associate around? I’ve lived in this city my whole life, you know. I can handle myself perfectly fine, _Mister Wayne_.” 

Damian at least had the decency to look chagrined, and nodded in the direction Stephanie had pointed out earlier. 

“Of course. I didn’t mean—” He shook his head, thinking better about whatever it was he’d been going to say. “Well. Have a pleasant rest of your evening, then.” 

“Will do,” Stephanie spun around, then back, remembering belatedly she wasn’t about to be ghosted by Bruce Wayne’s little boy. “Oh. If I may ask, when can I expect to hear from you?”

Damian was giving her that deer in the headlights look again, and Stephanie lowered herself to add on a polite post script. 

“I don’t mean to be too bold,” she demurred with a soft smile. “It’s just that I have other offers to consider, and as much as I’d love to become part of the Wayne family, if you end up going in another direction, I’d like to be made aware as soon as possible.” 

Damian spent a few beats of silence still looking bewildered, but recovered from the surprise quickly, and tugged at the strap of his messenger back in which he’d placed her resume. 

“I appreciate your honesty regarding your…other offers,” He looked a little uncomfortable as he chewed around those two words. “I’ll look over this in the coming days. I don’t like to play games or waste time, either. I’ll be contacting you by the end of the week to let you know my decision.” 

_His_ decision? Did Bruce Wayne really let his teenage son make the hiring calls for him? 

“Thank you,” Stephanie answered, genuinely pleased he was at least going to be quick and forthcoming when it came to her fate at Wayne Enterprises. She stuck out her hand for him to shake. “Have a good night, Damian.” 

“You as well, Stephanie.” He clasped her hand firmly, pulling her forward to press a dry kiss to the side of her face. She couldn’t hold back the full body flinch this resulted in, and for a moment they both just sort of stood there looking like they didn’t quite know what had just happened or why. 

Stephanie gave him one last close lipped smile before turning around to officially take her leave. _Must be a cultural thing_ , she thought as she made her way to the bus stop. Where was Damian’s mother from, again? She couldn’t remember, but snorted softly to herself at the secondhand embarrassment of absent-mindedly kissing your potential employee’s cheek. She couldn’t wait to get home and tell Kara all about her disastrously unsuccessful interview with the heir to the Wayne empire. She knew there was no chance in Hell he was going to even glance at her resume, but at least she’d have a funny story to tell at parties for the rest of her life. 

#

“It can’t have been that bad!” Kara was already in tears and Stephanie hadn’t even got to the part where she’d spent a full ten minutes detailing the way she used to expertly shoplift from convenience stores. Kara couldn’t even let her finish that part before wheezing like she’d been kicked in the ribs. “Stop it! I’m calling Conner. Tim needs to hear this!” 

“No!” Stephanie shrieked, pulling her roommate’s phone out of her hands. “You can’t tell Tim! You’ll ruin my chances!” 

This was a long running joke between the two of them, as Stephanie had once spent the better part of a year harboring an unadvisable crush on Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, knowing fully well he was almost too gay to function. 

“I can’t believe it,” Kara snorted into her glass of pink champagne, crackling the drying mud mask that slathered both their faces. “After all the trouble I went through to get you that interview.” 

“It wasn’t all me, you know,” Stephanie countered darkly. “I’m not the one who went in for the kiss at the end of it.” 

Kara gaped at her. “You’re joking.” 

“I wish,” Stephanie rolled her eyes. “That kid is so backward I doubt he could socialize himself out of a paper bag.” 

Kara’s eyes hardened. “Well, he is on the Autism Spectrum.” 

“Well, it would have been nice to know that before I made my problematic joke,” Stephanie copied her disapproving tone. “That explains a lot, though. Maybe it didn’t go that badly, after all.” 

Kara struggled to look convinced of this. She opened her mouth to retort and was cut off by the shrill ring of Stephanie’s ringtone. 

“Jesus!” Kara shrieked, face twisting in agony.

“My hearing just keeps getting worse!” Stephanie argued against Kara’s silent complaint. “Meanwhile you can hear dog whistles, you freak bitch.” 

Kara grit her teeth in pain as she cupped her hands over her sensitive little ears. “Just answer it!” 

Stephanie kicked at Kara’s legs from where they were slung on top of her own on their cramped thrift store couch that they never could get the mysterious stains out of and answered the phone without even checking the caller ID. 

“Hello?” 

“Miss Brown?” 

It took Stephanie a few seconds to remember that was her name. 

“Um, yeah?” 

“This is Damian Wayne calling.” 

“Oh!” Her voice raised about four octaves as she involuntarily slid into her Professional Lady voice. “Mr. Wayne! So nice to hear from you.” 

Kara made a retching gesture with her mouth and forefingers, Stephanie flipped her off. 

“Yes,” Damian replied, stilted and strange, and Stephanie had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from making a comment on the awkwardness of that. 

“I hope you don’t consider it too forward to contact you so soon after our initial meeting,” Damian went on, and victory surged through Stephanie’s chest like a flaming arrow. 

“Of course not!” She chirped, losing all control of volume regulation. “Did you have some more questions for me?” 

“Uh, well, yes—I suppose.” Damian still sounded oddly off balance, like she was the one who had called him up out of the blue and not the other way around. “I read over the information you gave me, and after reflecting on our time spent together the other night, I’d like to see you again.” 

“Great!” Stephanie all but squealed, barely even paying attention to what he was rambling about. She’d scored a second interview —at Wayne Enterprises!!!— and she was much too high on the self-satisfaction of this to do any sort of critical thinking. 

The pause of the other end of the phone was long enough to harsh her buzz, just a little. She was coming on too strong! She needed to dial it back down, be cool and detached, but professional and competent. 

She cleared her throat. “I’m checking my schedule now. It looks like I have some free space this Friday afternoon.” 

She also had free space _this_ afternoon, and every afternoon after that until further notice, but Damian Wayne didn’t need to know that. 

“That works for me,” he said, and when he failed to elaborate, Stephanie mindlessly picked up the slack, already mentally rummaging through her closet, trying to piece together an outfit that said professional and eager but not too desperate. And certainly nothing eggplant purple. Or, perhaps, especially something eggplant purple. 

“Where will we be meeting?” 

“About that,” Damian seemed to exhale around the words, like he’d been waiting for her to ask. “I was thinking, this time why don’t you pick the place?” 

“Me?” Stephanie was too aware of how high her voice rose at the suggestion. She winced on Kara’s behalf, who was undoubtedly still judging her from the couch.

“It seems only fair,” Damian continued. “After the ordeal I put you through last time.” Stephanie was thrown by the odd and unfamiliar lilt to his voice, almost as if this was a friendly conversation and not a business one. She remembered what Kara has said about Damian being on the Autism Spectrum and silently chastised herself for thinking the way he expressed himself was strange. It wasn’t like he could help it, and he seemed to be trying his best to be polite now, probably trying to make up for how rude he’d been at the beginning of their last meeting. And here she was, planning to perform a hate crime on a disabled teenager. Later, she would remind herself to tell Kara to slap her across the face. 

#

He had to be fucking with her. 

_He’s totally fucking with you_ , Kara confirmed from where Stephanie was surreptitiously texting her under the table. 

She knew Damian Wayne was…quirky…to say the least, but never having been to a Starbucks? That was just bonkers. His brother, Tim, had a fucking macchiato named after him, for Christ’s sake. 

“I’m struggling to believe there is anything but milk and sugar in this,” he told her, eyeing his sweating cup of iced coffee like it had insulted his mother. 

“Well,” Stephanie shrugged. “You should have asked for an extra shot of espresso and light on the ice, that’s what I always do.” 

Damian crinkled his pert little snub nose up in a way that would have been kind of adorable on someone else. On the heir to Wayne Enterprises, all it did was incite a vague sense of dread. “That is an absurd amount of work to do to simply be served what’s being advertised.” 

“Do you want to switch?” Stephanie blurted out before she could think better of it. Firstly, it was an insane thing to suggest to the person who held her future in his hands, and secondly, she really didn’t want to give up her perfectly good Tall, Dark, and Handsome. Damian had been appalled by the name choice, insisting his brother was none of those things. 

“Technically it’s just called a Dark and Handsome,” she’d tried to explain, feeling a flush of defense in Tim’s honor. “I just always get a tall size because I like to say I want a tall, dark, and handsome.” 

Damian just blinked at her, his mouth down-turned ever so slightly, and it became clear they were surfing on entirely different wavelengths. 

She wished, suddenly, it was the middlest Wayne child who’d been sent to interview her. She and Tim would have gotten along famously, and then they would have become best friends, and she wouldn’t have to hack into Kara’s facebook to see the photos and updates on him that Kara’s cousin, Conner, regularly posted. 

**He hates the drink i recommended lmao** Stephanie texted to her roommate, her hands gone uncharacteristically clammy. This whole lol I’m interviewing at Wayne Enterprises thing had really just been a joke at the end of the day. She knew it was a cold day in hell sort of long shot, so why was her heart suddenly punching her repeatedly in the ribs at the thought of having screwed it up? 

_omg call me_ Kara texted back. 

**We only just started i will when its over** she quickly typed out before turning the device on silent and setting it face down on the table in front of her. Damian’s eyes flicked down and back up again, noticing the action and awarded her with a small smile, clearly impressed by her present and attentive disposition.

Fuck yeah. Take that, Pepsi. She was about to get a job at Wayne Enterprises. 

Damian didn’t waste time, jumping into the information he must have gleaned from skimming over the resume she’d left with him. She expertly navigated her way through the disastrous internship at LexCorp she’d done the summer before her senior year at GU, and by the end of it made it seem like it had indeed been an “exciting and positive learning experience”. 

Damian opened his mouth to speak and the rattling sound of Stephanie’s phone vibrating atop the table between them came out. 

“Sorry,” Stephanie quickly hit a button on the side to quiet it. “Thought I turned it off.”

Damian laughed, and it was a wholly unfamiliar sound. In fact, everything about him seemed strangely new when she compared and contrasted it to her memory of him. Watching him sit languidly across from her in broad daylight, light wash jeans and obviously expensive yet casually styled sheer white button down, rolled up at cuffed at his forearms. He had surprisingly slender wrists, long fingers, and there was something impossibly delicate about the way they moved, curling around things almost curiously as he reached and grasped around thin air—fidgety. That’s what he was. It was kind of cute. 

Damian Wayne, kind of cute in the daylight. Who knew? 

“Anyway,” she was eager to draw his mind away from unprofessional phone-ringing and awkwardly dodging good morning side hugs from Lex Luthor. It was time to do what she’d spent the last four years in college training for, brown-nosing. 

“I’m very flattered that you were interested in a second meeting. I’m sure the competition’s fierce.” 

“Hardly,” Damian blurted out, then cleared his throat awkwardly, surprised at his own outburst. Stephanie couldn’t help but giggle good-naturedly at him. There was an urge rising up inside her that involved the now flushed boyishly round cheeks on Damian’s otherwise angular and mature-looking face and pinching them between her thumbs and forefingers. 

“Father’s not as interested, usually.” Damian went on. "I must admit his unusual insistence upon my meeting with you piqued my interest much more than my mother’s never-ending onslaught ever has.” He let out short breath of a laugh, amused with whatever image he’d just conjured up in his mind. “Perhaps she should take note from him.” 

Hmm. What did Stephanie know about Damian’s mother? Not a lot, she unfortunately was beginning to realize. She knew the petty gossip about her previous relationship with Damian’s father, the scandal of Damian’s conception and subsequent birth and all that, and she knew the al Ghul side of the family were a powerful corporate dynasty all their own. But what did they do, exactly? Did Damian vet potential employees for their business as well? She was taking too long to say something. 

“Your mother’s very beautiful,” is all she could come up with. 

Oof. 

But that was fine, she could come back from that. “You look so much like her.” 

Womp. 

Luckily Damian was still coming down from his own private amusement that her words didn’t seem to sink very far into him, and he chuckled low in his throat. 

“I’ll let her you know you said so,” he promised with a strangely wry glint in his eyes. Those caramel green eyes turned pensively downward for a moment, then flicked back up to meet Stephanie’s eager gaze. “I’m not sure she’d like you very much.” 

Stephanie all but guffawed, utterly unprepared for the direction this conversation had taken. She recovered as demurely as she could, pressing a delicately offended hand to her chest. 

“I’ll be sure to stay on your father’s good side, then,” she assured Damian. “Unless _she’s_ hiring.” 

Damian’s lips broke open into a brilliant, open mouth smile. He shook his head, making a _ttch_ sound with his tongue and teeth. “Never mind. I was wrong.” 

Stephanie laughed again, a little awkwardly this time, unsure of how to steer the conversation back to so when are you going to tell me whether I have the job or not territory. She glanced toward the flickering light that was distracting her peripheral and wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“Go on,” Damian nodded toward her now silent but still obnoxiously insistent phone, lighting up like a child’s toy. “Answer it.” 

“Oh—no—” She was fumbling, cheeks flushing, her dreams of working for Wayne Enterprises slipping through her clammy fingers. “I’ll just—” As much as she wanted to take the stupid life-ruining mobile device and hurl it against the nearest wall while screaming in feral rage, she was _going_ to say she’d put it away in her bag where it wouldn’t disturb them, but her eyes caught a flash of the glaring 5 Missed Calls from Kara, followed by 17! 17 Unread Text Messages. 

Blind reflexes taking over for logic in the cockpit of her brain, she hastily unlocked her phone to skim over the barrage of STEPH! PLEASE PLEASE CALL ME WHEN YOU SEE THIS! NOW LIKE NOW LIKE RIGHT NOW!!!! and her cognition altogether started to overheat and whirr like a laptop fan. 

“Um, actually,” she blinked dazedly down at her phone. “I’m so sorry, but I do have to take this.” 

“Of course,” Damian nodded at her genially, and she didn’t give herself enough time to fixate on how strangely accommodating his behavior was while she dashed out of the coffee shop and onto the sidewalk outside to call her roommate back. 

“Stephanie!” Kara shrilled upon answering. “Thank God!” 

“Kara, what the fuck?” Stephanie demanded. “What’s wrong?” 

“You’re not still with Damian, are you?” Kara asked, ignoring her question and dumbfounding Stephanie at the unexpected use of her interviewer’s first name. 

“What—What—What is going on?” Stephanie finally managed to sputter out, shaking her head in frustration. “I just bailed on my interview and squandered my professional future to come talk to you, so spit it out.” 

“Oh, God, Steph!” Kara whined miserably. “Okay, okay. So, listen. I just got off the phone with Babs.” 

“Uh huh,” Steph grunted, impatient. 

“And she just got off the phone with Harvey, and he—” 

“Who’s Harvey?” 

“Her dad!” 

“What? I thought her dad was Jim.” Stephanie mused, feeling an abstract sense of dread cresting behind her eyes like the aura of an oncoming migraine. 

“Her other dad!” Kara groaned, before barreling on before Stephanie could ask any more derailing questions. “And _he_ just got off the phone with Jim, who just got off the phone with Bruce—Wayne—” Kara paused to add, as if they knew many other Bruces in Gotham and it was necessary to specify. “And Bruce told Jim to tell Babs to tell Tim to tell Conner to tell me how grateful he was for setting my friend up with his son, because it seemed like it was going well, and Damian was really excited about going out with you again, and well, luckily Babs realized what was going on and called me straight away so I could talk to you about it. Anyway, I’m sorry about the mix up, but thank God you got out of there before anything too weird happened, right? Steph? Steph, are you still there?”

Stephanie’s brain seemed to blank out for a minute there, shutting down and rebooting itself to better process the information that had just been thrust upon her. 

“I’m—here.” She answered, unsure of the accuracy of this statement. “I—I’m not—I have to—What exactly did you say to Conner, Kara?” 

“I asked him if he could ask Tim to talk to Babs to talk to Jim to talk to Bruce about any job openings at Wayne Enterprises—for a friend.” 

“And somewhere along this game of telephone that turned into…?” 

“Well, uh,” Kara fumbled. “You know. I guess things just sort of got lost in translation and by the time it got to Bruce it seemed less like an application for a job and more like…well…you know…do you…do you get what I’m saying here?” 

“That the entirety of your extended family is sharing one brain cell and it’s Barbara’s?” Stephanie hissed through clenched teeth. “Yes, that’s been made very clear.” 

“I’ll tell her you said that,” Kara offered morosely. “She’ll appreciate it.” 

“This isn’t possible,” Stephanie argued, her mind flipping through every interaction she’d had with Damian Wayne thus far like pages in a picture book. “All we’ve done is talk about work, and the possibility of me working for him! Well, his dad. Whatever! There’s no way he thinks—” Stephanie’s throat closed around the rest of that sentence. She couldn’t even go there. “I gave him my _resume_ , Kara! He thanked me for bringing it!” 

“I told you,” Kara whined, and Stephanie could just imagine the crinkly little lines of worry cracking across her perfectly porcelain skin. “Damian’s a little on the strange side. I’m surprised he didn’t have one to give you right back, now that I think of it.” 

“It’s just not possible,” Stephanie insisted, shaking her head like Kara could see her. “Look, I can’t deal with this right now. I’ve already been gone way too long. I have to get back inside.” 

“Huh?” Kara sounded alarmed. “You mean, you’re still with him? Oh my god, Steph, no! You can’t go back inside. Just make a break for it. Come straight home so we can start elaborately faking your death. We’ll have to adopt new identities and move down south. There’s no future for you in Gotham after you ghost Bruce Wayne’s son.” 

On that note, Stephanie hung up the phone. 

She kept her composure surprisingly well for someone who’d just been told she was on not a first, but a second date with the littlest prince of Gotham City. She strode confidently back to the table Damian was still sitting at, and retook her seat across from him. Kara was prone to melodrama, everyone knew that, and there was no telling what Jim’s daughter had actually said to her on the phone, she probably just said something vague and complimentary and Kara’s overactive imagination had run off with it. She cleared her throat and dropped her now shut off phone into her purse. 

“Sorry about that,” she smiled thinly at Damian. 

“No worries,” he shrugged, a frighteningly loose smirk splitting across his sun-drenched face. “Was that one of your…how did you put it…other offers?” 

Oof. 

“Just my roommate,” she tried to laugh off the vaguely concerning remark. “She was freaking out because she,” Stephanie stopped to think about the fact that Kara was the one who’d gotten her into this mess. “Clogged the toilet.” 

“Oh,” Damian looked inappropriately worried about this. “Does she need help?” 

“I set her on the right path,” Stephanie concluded. Though in truth her mind was a smoked out den of doubt. Her stomach turned in on itself, like when she gave herself a fright at the sight of a shadow before realizing what she’d seen. 

“Damian,” she spoke slowly, her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. “I was wondering…when your dad talked to you about meeting with me…what exactly, did he, um, say?” 

Damian did not seem at all caught off guard by the question, and Stephanie’s stomach flipped again, reminded of Kara’s warnings. 

“He was very complimentary, of course.” Damian shrugged, seemingly hesitant suddenly. “If what you want to know is why I agreed, then, I suppose it was simply the fact that he told me he thought I’d like you. It made me curious.” 

“He thought…” Stephanie’s heart hammered in her chest. “You’d like me…” 

Like her, like for the company? Right? That made sense, didn’t it? 

“My brother Jason told me you were likely to be a crazed fan, what with the haphazard way you went about contacting my father, and what not. Tim confessed he’d been in on it, then, and that he’d be surprised if you even knew who I was. I was definitely intrigued after that.” 

“Tim,” Stephanie’s head spun, ice cold hatred pouring over the fiery pit of passion for Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne she stored in her chest. “So he’s the real culprit…” 

“Pardon me?” Damian raised an eyebrow, confused but not offended by this assessment of his brother. 

“Nothing,” Stephanie shook her head, more of Kara’s previous words filtering through her brain. They were going to have to fake their deaths and flee the city after this. Her gut twisted and rusted inside her like it was made of rotting wood. This was absolutely horrifying. Everything she’d said, done, all playing before her now in an entirely new and utterly devastating context. 

“Could I ask, then,” said Damian, blissfully unaware of the chaos swirling around him. “What brought about your interest in me?” 

Jesus fucking Christ. Her life may be ruined, but there had to be a way she could still spare Damian’s feelings. He must have really—liked her? 

“Sorry,” Damian winced at her gaping silence. “That was forward of me.” 

The thought suddenly sunk in to the point where it could be fully understood. Her neck burned, flushing up into her itching scalp. Damian Wayne, kind of cute in the daylight surprisingly funny and sweet caramel green-eyed Damian Wayne, liked her? Enough to ask her out _again_? Enough for his dad to tell Jim to tell Babs to tell Tim to tell Conner to tell Kara _thank you_ for introducing _Stephanie_ to his _son_?

And Damian? He’d, God, he’d…. _kissed her_. That first night. All frazzled and mopey about her staunch insistence upon walking to the bus stop alone. Her flesh burned anew, the reintroduced memory of Damian’s dark plum lips pressed against the overheated skin of her cheek. And now she had to tell him, this sweet boy who liked her, all the moony eyes and sparkly smiles she’d been giving him, all the leaning forward pressing her tits together, the eyelash batting and compliment giving? It had all been harnessing lust for political purposes. She was a predator, she was a villain, she was spiraling into absolute insanity here. 

Ah, fuck it.

She leaned across the table and kissed Damian Wayne on the mouth. His plush plum lips parted in surprise, suffocating her bottom lip with warm, sweet pressure. 

“I see,” Damian blinked as they parted, looking around surely to see if there were any celebrating paparazzi about to send his four kids through college. “I didn’t realize I’d issued a challenge.” 

Stephanie sighed dismally, cupping one of those boyishly round scruffy cheeks with her hand. “You are so cute.” 

Damian looked down at his lap, gently shying away from her unexpected touch. “Thank you.” His eyes flicked upward for the briefest of moments. “You’re a very beautiful woman, Stephanie.” 

It was like, the grossest thing a dude could possibly say, and yet the way it sounded in Damian’s low velvety timbre of a voice, all hesitant and achingly earnest, her breath caught painfully in her throat, cheeks all a-flush like a medieval maiden getting her bodice ripped off by a dangerous rogue prince in the middle of a forest. 

Part of her wanted, so very badly, to simply see the rest of this date out to its end, politely tell Damian that while she found him very sweet and charming, she wasn’t interested in continuing to see each other. He would be disappointed, maybe, but he was young and hot and rich so he’d soon be over it. She could spare him the embarrassment of having to tell him while he thought he’d been dating her she’d been weaseling her way through a job interview. It would be the right thing to do, all parties considered. Neither of them would have to suffer the resolute humiliation of this and be then traumatized from it for the foreseeable future. 

But when Damian looked at her again, not in any way that was special in the slightest, just a bland, appraising sort of look that anyone might give anyone, she found that regardless of the inevitable consequences, she had no choice but to be honest with Damian Wayne. 

“Oh.” He said, when she’d finished. He said nothing else for a long stretch of time. Seemingly upon the moment he realized it, he said, “I should go now.” 

“Damian,” Stephanie all but cringed his name. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.” 

“No,” he insisted, holding his hands up as Stephanie tried to stand alongside him. “No, no. _I_ apologize, truly, for the misunderstanding. And I take full responsibility.” He looked around skittishly, like a cornered, frightened animal. “And I’d like to go now.” 

“Okay,” Stephanie shrank bank, eyes burning hot like she was about to cry. “Sorry,” she repeated, uselessly. She’d worked really hard to hold it together as she gathered herself and left the coffee shop, but went ahead and let herself weep on the bus ride home. Silently, as to not disturb others, but visibly awkward enough to be penance for putting that unbearable fucking look on Damian Wayne’s face. 

She hoped, maybe, he would call her. She didn’t know why. Why she thought he might call her, that is. She knew why she wanted him to. She felt horrible, stupid, selfish, angry. Her hands shook with the anxiety of it. The certainty that she was never going to speak to Damian again. And yet every day that passed stung, anyway, like a healing and peeling sunburn, until days turned to weeks to months and one day she noticed it wasn’t so bad anymore, until it faded into the skin of her memories completely, temporarily tanned and impermanent as anything else. 

#

Stephanie was in love. 

Seriously, like the first millisecond she’d entered this woman’s presence, she’d been like a cartoon wolf with a large tongue and hearts for eyes. 

It wasn’t just that she was hot, which she very much was, like drooling cheeks flushing passing out hot, but she also held the key to unlock all Stephanie’s hopes and dreams and she was dangling it in front of her and that was very valid and sexy of her as far as Steph was concerned. 

She was the new curator of The Gotham Museum of Classic Art, The Gimmick, as it was colloquially called, a smallish specialty museum in downtown Gotham. It had a kitschy, low-key vibe, and the dimly lit corridors of Ancient Roman vases were prime making out spots for middle schoolers on field trips. She was mysterious and Romantic, with a capital R, and she’d just transferred in from out of the country, taking some huge deal in exchange for previously banned high profile art into Gotham’s museum circuit. And she’d contacted Stephanie out of the blue, after being hired on and going through The Gimmick’s whole file of old applications on hand, and wanted Stephanie to meet with her for an interview. The Gimmick was literally the first place she’d ever applied after she’d graduated. She wanted to work there like she wanted to breathe. 

“Enough with this formal nonsense,” she lightly tapped Stephanie on the back of the hand now. “I think you already know you got the job.” 

Stephanie’s heart burst, literally burst, splattering against the walls of her ribcage. 

“Oh, well, thank you so much—”

“No,” The curator waved her slick gel-manicured hand at her. “None of that, either. You are going to be of great service to me, Stephanie. It is you I should be thanking. And fate, for bringing us together.” 

“I feel the same way,” Stephanie gushed like an early 2000s preteen exposed to a Jonas Brother. “It’s been so nice to meet you, Talia.” 

“It’s funny,” Talia said, leaning in like she was about to enlighten Stephanie on the secrets of the cosmos. “When I actually did look through all the old applications on hand, yours wasn’t among them.” 

Stephanie blinked. “Sorry?” 

“Yours was the first one I got ahold of, after I was made aware of your longtime interest. I thought I’d keep an eye on it and compare it with the other when I found it, but then I couldn’t. Strange, don’t you think?” 

“Yeah,” Stephanie said, just to agree with her, because she thought she might be having a stroke or just had no idea what this lady was talking about. 

“I was having lunch with my son and lamenting about all this awful paperwork I’d be going through soon, and moaning on about the fact that I hadn’t got an assistant and I needed to hire that one before I could even think about anything else, and just as such, he had your resume on hand.” 

“Oh!” Stephanie said, because now she could understand English again. “You’re Damian’s mother.” Her voice came out about five octaves higher than it naturally should. 

“It’s a shame my son doesn’t care for my opinion,” she tutted, leaning forward to tuck a wayward blonde curl behind Stephanie’s ear. “What a cute pair you’d be. But I don’t think he’d go for you.”

Stephanie silently prayed that if her life was The Truman Show and this was all an elaborate social experiment, _the subject has become aware, please take the shot_. 

“Your son is very handsome,” Stephanie said. Why? She wouldn’t be able to explain if there was a gun to her head. But it was fine, because she followed it up with, “He looks like you.” 

Thankfully Talia had the decency to pretend she hadn’t heard that, and went on to finish up the formalities of hiring Stephanie on the spot. Stephanie had to order four mini passion fruit crepes with extra whipped cream at the all-day breakfast truck downtown just to calm her nerves. She dawdled around the grubby streets of gentrified downtown Gotham, listless and pent-up, idly prowling like a sleepy caged animal. There was a humid static energy in the air, Stephanie couldn’t ignore it. 

She found him in the used bookstore tucked inbetween a thrift shop and a vacant space. 

“Should I say we gotta stop meeting like this, or do you want to?” 

Damian, to his credit, looked genuinely shocked to see her, but only for a split-second. 

“Should have known,” he said, more to himself than Stephanie. “My mother hates Downtown Gotham. She’d never ask me to lunch around here.” 

“Hm,” was all Stephanie could think to reply. “You never called me.” 

Damian barely reacted, cool and aloof and curious all at once. “Were you expecting me to?” 

“No,” Stephanie admitted, glum and honest and unafraid to be either. “I hoped you would, though.” 

“Why?” 

“I don’t know,” Stephanie said. “The whole thing made my heart hurt. I wanted to see you again, or at least just talk to you. I don’t know why. I felt like you were upset and that made me upset. And I, like, kinda missed you.” 

“I know what you mean,” Damian said simply, as if that absolute fucking gibberish had made complete and perfect sense to him. “I’m sorry to have caused you any distress. I thought this act might do something to make amends.” 

Stephanie wasn’t expecting this. “Did you think I’d find out?” 

“I hoped,” he said, voice gone husky in its shyness. “I hoped my mother might mention it in passing, or you would put two and two together somehow, and it might make you smile. That’s all I wanted.” He spoke that last sentence louder, hurriedly, like he’d only just remembered to say it. 

“I know,” Stephanie said, soft and a little shy now, herself, because she really did know he was telling the truth. He’d done this mindblowingly nice thing for her, just because he liked her and he wanted to, and really didn’t expect or even want anything in return. 

“Your mom told me she didn’t think you’d like me,” Stephanie said in a voice that was a little too inappropriate to speak to a boy about his mother in. 

Damian blanched accordingly. 

“She’s got no faith in me,” he huffed out eventually, crookedly baring his teeth into a self-satisfied smirk. “But I’ve always enjoyed proving her wrong.” 

That was the kind of line that seemed like it should be followed up by being shoved into a shelf of used books and rough making out, but Damian only lightly bumped his hand against hers, slowly dragging the pad of one of his fingers up the inside of her palm, before saying, 

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” 

Stephanie couldn’t sleep that night, so she slept well into the next day and was only shaken violently into consciousness by the sound of her phone blaring sirens into her eardrums. 

“Did I wake you?” Damian asked her, incredulous. “It’s four in the afternoon.” 

“It’s my last day off,” she justified, and Damian made that teeth and tongue clicking sound in reply. 

“Another commitment?” There was a dry tease to his voice that raked its way up her spine. “I worry you won’t be able to adequately split your time.” 

“Hey Damian,” she said, very, very quietly, still thinking about that palm touch stunt he’d pulled at the used bookstore. “You really don’t want to play this game with me.” 

“And why is that?” He pressed, smug and undeterred. 

It was sticky hot early Gotham summer, and Stephanie had taken the liberty to sleep in nothing but her favorite silky shimmery silver bra and undies. She lifted her phone from her face to minimize the call app and snap a lazy sunlit photo of herself, arched and pouting toward the camera, and sent it to what she know knew must be Damian’s personal number. 

“Stephanie?” He asked, confused by her silence. “Oh, hold on a moment. Someone’s messaged me.” He went silent for a fair amount of seconds. 

“Well. Alright, you’ve made your point.” He grunted in defeat. “I’m going hang up now. Goodbye.” 

Stephanie rolled over and snorted into her pillows. She felt giddy, terrified, and awake. 

A new text messaged pinged in on her phone and she slid it open to see an unrelated reply under the photo she’d texted to Damian. 

**If you don’t have other plans, I’d like to see you tonight.**

_I’m that good of a photographer huh?_ was Stephanie’s cruel reply. 

**What?** Damian texted back. 

**Oh. You’re making fun of me again. Wonderful.**

_I’d like to see you, too._ she atoned only a moment later. 

She dazedly agreed to whatever time and place Damian suggested, it was his turn anyway, given their ongoing tradition. 

She was nearly finished getting ready by the time another message came through from Damian. They weren’t due to meet yet for another hour, and her heart dipped in her chest a little, worried he might be cancelling on her. 

**You look like an angel by the way**

**In that picture**

**I can’t wait to see you,** **مهتاب.**

Her fingers couldn’t select, copy, paste fast enough. 

_What_ _am I doing?_ she thought to herself a little miserably at the realization she’d committed herself to a torrid love affair with her with the _only_ son of her new boss. But then another text popped in from Damian, he was standing in front of the mirror of a sleek and complex looking gym, his black wavy hair damp and hanging in his eyes, and he was very much not wearing a shirt. 

Well, she shrugged, going back to applying her mascara. There was her answer. 


End file.
